Team Bonding
by Tigerdust
Summary: Finn has an injury that needs immediate attention, but he's hesitant about going to the doctor. Puck pitches in. Matt goes to youtube for instruction answers. Mike runs back and forth for supplies. Kurt supervises. Guys of Glee, friendship fic!


"Dude! What is your issue?" Puck tossed his empty water cup into the nearby trash can. The locker room was haunted by the leftover steam from the showers. It was empty except for a couple of Glee guys and Puck was concentrating on his former best friend as he stared off into space.

Finn's eyes wandered to Puck, concentration evident. "What? Nothing. Just stuff."

Puck shook his head. "Stuff? You got tackled during practice by Bolechi. You need to work out whatever stuff it is. We ride a fine enough line here being Glee martyrs and football studs. Last thing we need is for your arm to break."

Finn jumped from the bench, the wincing bite as he chewed down on his lip going unnoticed. "Dude, don't do that. I stuck my neck out long before you even thought of it."

Matt's voice came from the mirror beyond the lockers. "You two really need to work out your shit."

Finn and Puck's voice coalesced. "Stay out of this Rutherford."

Swaggering in with a towel around his neck and his red mesh shorts hanging off his frame, Matt simply blinked and ignored Finn and Puck. He spoke again at his locker. "Seriously though. I thought my parents fought, but you two bitch at each other so much that I'm surprised anything gets done at all on the field or in the practice room."

Finn shook his head, sitting back down and finally removing the cleat that he had left on. Grabbing the ACE bandages on the bench next to his strewn about gear, Finn groaned. There was an extra grate to it. His body didn't just feel gross, but there was an extra hint of pain underneath it.

"Dude! What the hell is that smell?"

Finn called out to the showers where Mike Chang was doing his father's instructed tai chi forms as his personal cool down. "What are you talking about?"

"Smells like someone died!"

Puck rolled his eyes. "You're imaging things again, Chang."

Matt shook his head, turning from his locker after putting his t shirt on. "No, I don't think he is. I smell it too. And I don't think its Kurt's J. Lo shit either."

Puck twirled his toothbrush between his fingers as he decided if he wanted to spike the hawk. "Well, I don't know what you ladies are talking about. I can't smell a damn thing."

A few seconds later, Puck ate his words as the force of the stench slammed him against the shelving of his red metal locker. "Holy shit!"

Matt looked over at Puck being melodramatic and raised an eyebrow. "Told you. Mike's nose is never wrong. There's a reason his parents run the best Asian fusion restaurant in town."

Puck, now irritated by the brutality of the stench, bit back. "Thats because its the only Asian restaurant in town."

Mike's voice called as he moved from the showers to the sinks. "Not my fault the people of this city don't have good taste."

"Seriously though, someone needs to find out whoever the hell is hiding the skunk carcass and toss it in the trash."

Finn hesitated slightly. "I...I don't think it's a skunk."

Puck looked down at Finn, whose knee was reclined against his chest with his long left sock half dangling from his ankle. "You want to enlighten me then?"

Finn breathed in sharply as he fully removed the sock.

Matt gasped. "Dude."

Just above the front of the ankle, Finn had a bandage over a very red and puffy spot which was clearly the reason for the odor in the locker room.

"What the fuck is that, the plague?"

Finn shrugged. "Not sure. Went to the doctor after I got back from Quinn's church's men's conference in the wilderness. Doc said it wasn't Lyme disease, but that it didn't look too bad."

"When was that?" Mike leaned against the first row of lockers as he entered the room.

Finn responded guiltily. "Three days ago."

"So, it doesn't hurt?" Mike pulled his jeans up past his knees and buckled after tossing his shorts into the laundry bag he kept in his locker with the freshening ball so they wouldn't always smell like guys.

"It kinda started this morning, but I was hoping to ignore it. Got a lot of expenses..."

Puck shook his head, moving closer to the wound while trying not to tear up. "Dude, what good are you gonna do to Quinn if you've got gangrene?"

"It's not that bad."

Mike crossed Puck to get to his locker. "Probably just a bad bug bite. Be a man and lance it."

Finn shook his head . "Doc said that was a bad idea. Would leave it too prone to infection."

Puck accentuated his point with a commanding gesture. "You gotta do something about that, though. You don't want your leg falling off."

Finn looked up at Puck. "Why do you care what happens?"

Puck blinked, not expecting the question. "We're still bros, I guess."

Finn wasn't sure how to respond, so he looked down at the gauze. It wasn't soaked in dried blood, so obviously the infection or whatever it was ended up under the skin. Mike was probably right, but Finn wasn't sure this was the best place to lance it. What would he even use?

Matt was already flipping up his blackberry and connecting to the Internet though. "Finn, you want to take off the bandage? I'm gonna see if I can find a good vid on youtube to help you get rid of that shit."

Finn cocked his head. "You think its that serious?"

The choruses of voice sounded like one cosmic head roll. "Yeah."

Finn was surprised that it didn't hurt as he pulled the bandage away. But it did look like to should hurt. It wasn't quite a pimple, there didn't seem to be much of head. It was simply a warped, wrinkled twilight zone portion of skin. _Not quite cool enough to get a zombie virus_, Finn swore to himself in his own head.

Kurt bit down on an apple as he walked in. "That does not look healthy."

"What do you think it is?"

Matt howled. "Ah gross! Thank God its not...never mind. Next video."

Finn's eyes went a little wide. "What?"

Matt wagged his index finger. "You really don't wanna see it. But I'm gonna go ahead and guess its not a bug bite."

Kurt took a smaller bite of the apple to finish it off and then shot it daintily in a nearby trash can. "Staph infection then?"

Mike whistled low as he brought his shirt down over his head with the picture of the zombie Bruce Lee on it. "Lets hope not. Had an uncle who got one of those working at a summer camp one year. Not pretty."

Finn was starting to get worried and paranoid, a bad combination in his experience. "What should I do?"

Puck turned up the corners of his mouth a little as he pulled the knife out of the side compartment he kept in his shoe, the other side of course holding a condom and extra cab fare in case he got stuck somewhere unsavory. "Isn't it obvious? We gotta cut it out."

Finn nearly fell back off the bench. "Oh no. You're not coming near me with that thing. I've seen you clean your toenails with it!"

Puck shrugged. "C'mon! Stop being a baby. I'll sterilize it."

Kurt rolled his eyes as though he were Jane Goodall trying to explain her evidence of gorilla communities to the lowest ranked man at National Geographic. "I don't blame you Finn. But I think you're both insane if you're gonna cut it out with that knife."

Puck arched his eyebrow at Kurt. "Yeah? And what would you suggest Hummel?"

Kurt flipped his finger, pointing to space over Finn's shoulder. "Alcoholic swabs in my locker. I use them for my T-Zone to prevent blackheads but they should work just as well to sterilize. Bet you Matt's gonna find a video that uses them on the area."

Matt called up in the midst of a grimace. "He's not wrong."

Puck's voice smarted with a hint of hostility. "We'll just sterilize the knife with it then. No harm, no foul."

"Please Noah. That knife doesn't look like it could be used to cut through a tomato, let alone gouge some sort of infection." Kurt shook his head.

Matt's eyes went wide. "Dude, we're gonna need some paper towels. This thing is gonna....oh man!"

Mike walked over to Matt, glancing over the top of the phone. "What did you find?"

Matt nodded at Mike. "You'd better just grab some paper towels, man."

Mike walked past Kurt, grabbing a wad of towels but Kurt called while he was on his way back. "And a couple of thumbtacks from the cork board, please Mike."

Mike returned with the items, holding the thumb tacks out in his palm for Kurt, slightly confused. Kurt shook his head. "No. Not for me. Noah's the one with the lighter."

Puck tilted his head back in surprise. "No way! I don't even like Finn enough to do this for him. This goes way beyond owing me a favor or doing a beer run."

Finn blinked, wincing a bit as his morbid curiosity got the best of him and he poked the offensive area, which did not bounce back to its shape. "Please dude? Look, we'll put a referendum on the Quinn thing for now. I just don't think I have the stomach for it."

Noah was on the verge of yakking, but the chance to bond with Finn again, at least until he found out about what had happened with Rachel, but was willing to bite the bullet if it meant having some version of his best friend back. "You owe me."

"Yeah, whatever. Lets just...Matt?"

Matt seemed about three shades paler. "You know what? I think I'm just gonna go and get a couple of actual fresh towels."

Matt flipped his phone down quick enough, but the reaction in Mike's face was plain enough. Finn furrowed his brow. "Mike, what is he not telling us?"

"Lets just say there's lots of videos where these types of things are...umm...juicy."

Noah's voice would have cracked if it could. "You mean some of this shit is gonna squirt out at me?"

Kurt nodded, as though he had accepted the fact as well as the smell. "Of course. All that pressure has to go somewhere."

"I'm...." Puck was going to say that he was just going to drop this shit and head out but then he felt the lighter in his pocket. It was a silver one, pretty tacky looking actually with the Harley symbol on it, but it had been a present from Finn the first week of school when he had been pretty much named the second in command. But in a totally straight way, as much as two dudes can give each other gifts. Resigning himself to the forthcoming ooze, Puck changed his line of thinking. "...willing to take one for the team."

Plucking one of the thumb tacks from the outstretched palm when Matt returned, Puck squinted. "Kind of puny."

"Just do it!" Finn exasperated. "Don't care how!"

"Just calm, dude. I'm about ready to poke." Puck trembled as he knelt before the mysterious infection to pop it. He beckoned for Mike and the towel was laid down while the alcohol was rubbed over the wrinkly and stretched skin. The skin made a squelchy noise as the alcohol swab passed over it.

Finn and Kurt echoed each other. "Would you just do it already?"

Puck nodded, striking the pustule with the thumb tack after lighting the end with the lighter. The thumb tack stuck but Finn didn't make a single noise. Puck blinked, surprised at how the tack just kind of stuck in the ooze as though they were tar pits.

Yanking the tack and letting it fall into the folds of the waiting towel, he didn't get even a drop of ooze. He sighed in response. "Fine. You're gonna wanna close your eyes Finn."

"No, Puck!"

"Stop crying, you baby. Just shut your eyes. I'm gonna use the lighter again anyways."

Matt interjected, his eyes still torn between youtube vids of what he now recognized as a cyst or abscess and Finn's predicament. "At least he's not using the Bible method."

Finn's eyes looked as though they were gonna glue themselves to his forehead. "The what?"

Puck nodded. "You'd be in a lot more pain. But this ain't gonna be pleasant either."

Finn would have nearly jumped out of his skin when Puck's knife sliced the cyst, but he was already numb to the pain gathering on his leg. He groaned in gasps as the strange ooze started to crawl down the leg as it mimicked a volcano, but only briefly.

Finn squinted as Puck backed off a bit. "It...gah!"

"I know! Kurt, more towels!"

Kurt put his hand on his hip. "As if. I don't even like my dad that much. I'm just supervising."

Puck rolled his eyes, pointing in Matt's locker direction. "Fine. Mike?"

Mike grumbled but followed orders. He stopped when he heard Matt from the other portion of the locker room. "Oh God. You're gonna have to squeeze that."

Puck's voice turned adamant and shaky. "You are doing that yourself, Finn."

"I thought we were bros?"

"I got to agree with Kurt. Your pimple, you are draining it."

Finn nodded reluctantly. "At least it feels a bit better as least."

Kurt pulled a nail file out of the back pocket from his jeans. "Well, I'll stick around for moral support."

Matt grumbled in reply. "Ah kay, dude. What you are looking for is a stalk, thats what they're calling it."

Finn cocked his head in question. "Did I turn into the jolly green giant or something?"

Puck grimaced. "Nah man. Its the pimple from the black lagoon."


End file.
